Carbon nanotubes can be specifically produced with a desired structure from suitable precursor molecules

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In future, it will be possible to specifically equip carbon nanotubes with properties which they need for electronic applications, for example. Researchers at Empa in Dübendorf/Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart have succeeded for the first time in growing single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with only a single, prespecified structure. The nanotubes thereby have identical electronic properties. The decisive trick here: The team has taken up an idea which originated from the Stuttgart-based Max Planck researchers and produced the CNT from custom-made organic precursor molecules. The researchers started with these precursor molecules and have built up the nanotubes on a platinum surface, as they report in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature. Such CNTs could be used in future, for instance, in ultra-sensitive light detectors and very tiny transistors. For 20 years, material scientists working on the development of carbon nanotubes for a range of applications have been battling a problem – now an elegant solution is at hand. With their unusual mechanical, thermal and electronic properties, the tiny tubes with their honeycomb lattice of graphitic carbon have become the embodiment of nanomaterials. They could be used to manufacture the next generation of

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